Permanently Single
by cedarrapidsgirl78
Summary: My first foray into Star Trek fiction. Jim has something he wants to ask Bones. Eventually. Slash, implied right now, don't like, don't read. Much thanks to my cousin for the fic title idea and disease. To my other favorite cousin in NW WI.


"Hey Bones, guess what?" Jim Kirk bounded into the room with all the energy of a Labrador puppy, and about as much grace. Tripping over a pile of clothes on the floor, he slipped and fell hands followed by face first into Dr. McCoy's back, sending Bones into his desk, PADDs flying everywhere.

"Good God, man, what the HELL!" McCoy pushed back in his chair and stood up, blood pouring from his lip, sending Jim flying backwards in the other direction. The cadet landed on the floor under the other desk in the room, but not before hitting the back of his head in the process. Son of a _bitch_, that hurt, Jim thought. He reached out for McCoy's outstretched hand and pulled himself up and plopped down into a chair. He rubbed the back of his neck, and realized there was blood on his hand when he brought his hand away.

McCoy scowled at him as he came out of the bathroom, holding a bloody towel to his lip. He ducked back in there and came out with another towel and threw it at Kirk. "Why can't you bleed on your own side of the room, for a change? It looks like an OR under my desk half the damn time."

"Sorry." Jim got up with a grimace as he pushed the towel onto his wound. Bones was in the bathroom with a dermal regenerator to his lip. "I just wanted to show you a communication I got today." He watched the doctor scowling as he finished and wiped the last of the blood off his face. "I really am sorry, Bones. You still love me, right?" Kirk smiled that infamous smile, the one that usually had girls falling at his feet, or at the very least, their beds.

Bones snorted, or tried to, before settling for a disapproving look as he came over to Jim leaning against the bathroom doorway. "Yeah, I love you, like I love the Triprobial pox, except _that _doesn't return after you've had it. You keep coming back, over and over, like a damn plague." He led Jim back over to the chair he'd just shooed his friend from. "Sit. I have to patch you up. Again." Bones leaned over Jim's scalp and started mending the gash that he acquired from the desk.

Kirk sat in silence as Bones worked his magic, using the same dermal regenerator he had just used on himself moments before. He smiled. As grumpy and curmudgeonly as McCoy made himself out to be, Jim Kirk knew that the good doctor did like him, at least. He must a little, since they'd been lovers for the past six months. That ought to count for something. He hoped so, anyway.

"Hold still. Don't know why you're tryin' to look, you can't see the back of your head anyway." Despite the gruffness in his voice, there was a tenderness in his hands. Jim was really trying to look at McCoy, to see his skilled hands at work, to watch his brow furrowed in concentration, and the little bit of a glimpse of a look that said, _yes, I know what I'm doing, trust me. _And Jim did trust Bones. With his whole being. Corny, yes. But it was the truth. And, deep down he knew he loved Bones, as well.

They never talked about love. They were best friends who slept together, not that many people really knew about that aspect of their relationship. Not officially, anyway. Bones had been burned so bad by the ex-wife, Jim was lucky they had gotten into any kind of monogamous relationship at all. And Jim, well, there wasn't much love at his house much, either, with his step-father being an ass and his mother off the planet most of his life. There were all the girls, too, but they weren't real love, just sex. Neither Bones or Kirk knew much about real love, well, at least Jim never had. But what he felt for McCoy was so different and deeper than any girl he had been with. Now if he could just ever tell him that.

Jim just didn't want to screw it up with Bones. And he'd screwed up a lot. This is one thing he just didn't want to screw up, by confessing his feelings for something he didn't know if his best friend would return. He knew that Bones liked him a lot, more than a friend, obviously, but he didn't know if the man he called his lover LOVED him. Or wanted any real commitment from him. That sounded stupid. Jim rubbed his forehead. All this thinking and analyzing was giving him a headache, not like he didn't have one anyway at the back of his head from whacking it on his desk.

"Okay, all done. Want something for the pain? Cause you are going to feel that later, if you aren't already." Bones picked up his supplies and started putting them away.

Jim grimaced as he got up off the chair and headed for the bathroom. "No, thanks, I'll live for now. Besides, do you think I want to give you any more reasons to stick me with that stupid hypospray every chance you get? Although I am impressed that you asked me this time, instead of just jamming me in the neck. That hurts a lot, by the way."

Bones finished putting his things away and smiled at Jim. "That's only cause I love ya, ya big dope." Jim stopped cold and turned to face Bones. _What the hell?_ He thought, _He's a doctor, not a mind reader, how could he POSSIBLY know anything about what I was thinking? _Of course, all that was still in his head, and the most Jim could come up with was something not so intelligent or eloquent. "What?"

Bones just went back to his desk, cleaning up the blood that someone had gotten on it. "C'mon, Jim, you know I must care about you a little to keep being your personal physician after every fight and mishap that you've gotten into for the past two years." He decided the desk would pass for clean, and sat back down to go back to his reading.

Jim didn't have much to say to that. He wanted to say so much more, like_ I love you, too, Bones, and not just like friends like each other, but a lot more, like nothing I've felt before, but I don't know how you feel about about me, and I don't want things to be weird between us, and-_

"Jim?" Dr. McCoy's words cut through Kirk's thought's before he could get out any of it. "Jim? Are you _sure_ you're okay, because you're looking a little pale..maybe you should lay down for a while." Bones looked at Jim with concern.

Jim stared at his best friend. He wanted to tell him everything, but he couldn't. Suddenly he was very tired, both from the whack to the head, and from all the blasted thinking he'd been doing. "Yeah, I think I will lay down, Bones, thanks-thanks for everything that you do for me." Here was Bones help him yet _again_, this time putting his arm under his shoulder and guiding him to the bed, gently taking off his boots, helping him lay down and covering him up. As he was drifting off to sleep, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Jim half expected to feel the jab and hiss of a hypospray, but instead he felt Bones' calloused thumb running down his jaw, followed by a gentle kiss on the forehead. Then he hear a whisper-Bones probably thought Jim was asleep, but Jim heard it, most definitely. "Rest well, Jim. love you, kid." And with that last thought, Jim Kirk went to sleep.


End file.
